


an offer she can't refuse

by Veera_Kara



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Forbidden Fruit, Forbidden Love, MUAHAHHAA, Mafia AU, OPI, OPI Fanfic Party, Olicity Prompt Inspirations, Witness Protection Program, haha Queen get it okay sorry got distracted, hey what was that trope that was going around in fanfiction years back, oh yeah, the Queens are a mob family, with Moira is the leader bc lbr she is the Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veera_Kara/pseuds/Veera_Kara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity witnesses a crime and is suddenly placed into witness protection when she reports the crime to the cops. While hiding as “Meghan”, she meets Oliver and falls in love, unaware that it was his family that committed the crime in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an offer she can't refuse

“Name?”

“Feli— Sorry. Habit. It’s Meghan.”

The agent looked at her with hooded eyes. “You need to break that habit.”

“Sorry.” She said, sighing again. “Let’s try it one more time.”

“Name?”

“Meghan.”

“Meghan what?”

“Meghan Darnell.”

“Again. Name?”

“Meghan Darnell.”

“Do you know who Felicity Smoak is, Ms. Darnell?”

“… No. I don’t.”

— — — — —

(It takes her five minutes and three separate tries to go into the hair salon, fifteen minutes while she changes her mind about what color she wants, and one hour for her hair to change from her natural brown to blonde. It’s different, it’s strange, and she’s never felt so helpless about making her own decisions before this moment.)

— — — — —

Felicity (Meghan, dammit.) pushed her glasses closer to her eyes and wrinkled her nose and the odd heavy weight of them on her face. She used to have glasses years ago before her Lasik surgery, and she had gotten used to life without them. But Agent Diggle told her that glasses were a great way to distort her face from the people looking a little too closely, so she resigned herself to getting used to it again.

It was awkward to stand in front of a Buy More and realize that putting her life, blood and soul into getting her Bachelors in Computer Science at  _M.I.T._  meant nothing because she was working at a  _Buy More._

(“This is just a temporary placement until the trial is over Ms. Darnell. This is for your safety.”)

Felicity sighed and walked in, trying not to drag her feet as she went even though the impulse to do so was overwhelming. If only she had just  _not forgotten her phone…_

But then she wouldn’t have seen it. Or… heard it.

(Some man cowering on the ground in a dirty, smelly alleyway  _begging for his life,_ “Please, please! I have a wife, two kids, little girl named Annie and Amy and  _no please—_ “

“Sorry Mr. Jones, but I don’t care.”

 _And then the gunshot that she still heard in her nightmares._ )

A horn woke her up from her senses and she shook her head, furtively glancing around her for an invisible face before walking inside.

— — — — —

Felicity tapped her foot against the desk and clicked her pan in a constantly fashion that made her ears bleed, but really anything was better than being bored at Buy More. She already updated their security system three times and updated every painfully flawed system and fixed six people’s whiny computer issues that weren’t really issues at all but were more of “I was just… typing! Typing things on my computer and suddenly I got this virus?” and she really just wanted to go  _home_.

Chris swatted the pen out of her hand and she glared at him through the corner of her eye, but he just ignored her and proceeded to walk away as if he didn’t rudely invade her personal space.

Felicity sighed and was about to tiredly lean her face against her hand as she tried not to fall asleep in this live action nightmare come to life, when she saw him.

She blinked three times before deducing that he was real, and yes that was his very real self walking towards her at an alarmingly fast pace.

“Hi”, he said smiling, and wow even his voice sounded like it could make angels weep and either this man was really too beautiful to be true, or she was so bored that she started hallucinating. (Either way, she was happy.)

“Hi…” she said, inwardly cursing herself for sounding so vapid. She cleared her throat. “I mean hi.”

His lips quirked up in a smile, “Hi.”

“Hi”, she said again, before shaking her head. “I mean not hi, I mean yes hi as in hello very nice to meet you but yes I promise that my vocabulary consists of more words than just a two letter greeting that isn’t even a  _proper_ and longer  _hello_ , and… now you know that I talk more than I really should be allowed to and I’ll be shutting up now in three… two… one…”

He smiled again and she coughed, trying to regain her bearings while subtly clearing off the mess of tiny paper airplanes made out of post-its from her desk. “How can I help you?”

Mr. Perfect set a laptop on her desk. “I’m having some trouble with my computer and they told me you were the person to come and see.”

Felicity nodded, grabbing the laptop. Her eyebrows rose up in confusion when she saw the… were those  _bullet holes_?

“I was at my coffee shop surfing the web and I spilled a latte on it”, he said, smiling as if she couldn’t see right through the lie (as well as his impressive yet guilt-filled posture).

“Really?” she asked skeptically, eyeing the laptop with more suspicion.

“Really.”

“Because these look like bullet holes”, she said off-handedly, as if she wasn’t pretending to be Meghan Darnell and wasn’t in the witness protection program for witnessing a  _mob-related murder._

“My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood.”

Felicity raised and eyebrow before pursing her lips and tilting her head to figure out if this guy was real or not. “Okay I’m sorry, is this a joke? Did Michael from Electronics put you up to this?”

Mr. Perfect chuckled before shaking his head. “No but… If you salvage anything from it, I’d  _really_  appreciate it.”

Felicity cast a suspicious glance at the man (and simultaneously appreciating the muscles she could see bulging out of his arms because she was shameless and also _wow_ ) before slowly nodding. Was she supposed to report this to the cops or something? (Or perhaps the three agents following her around? Where were they anyways?)

The man raised an eyebrow as if waiting for something, and Felicity shook her head to try to stop herself from getting distracted. “Sorry! Yeah um… This’ll… Take a while. Are you particularly attached to this laptop? Because I am very sorry to say that it is probably above saving. I can get your files off of it if you’d like.”

Mr. Perfect showed her that her nickname for him was very deserving when he smiled and she felt her heart stutter. How was this fair? She meets the perfect looking man but she can’t even tell him her real name.

“Yeah.. That’d be great.” He held his hand out for her to shake and she grasped it lightly, smiling back at him. “I’m Oliver.”

Felicity bit her lip to stop herself from saying ‘Felicity’ but thankfully she had gotten rid of that habit. (Mostly.) “Meghan.”

“Meghan huh?” he said, glancing over her as if he liked what he saw. Felicity blushed.

“Yeah um… Do you want to come pick it up later? It might take a while.”

Oliver looked around him as if he was looking for someone (a girlfriend?) but seemed to be satisfied with whatever he did (or did not) find. “No, I’m happy here.”

Felicity bit her tongue so she wouldn’t say something completely embarrassing, as she was prone to doing, before she started to enter his information in the system. “Do you have a Buy More card Oliver?”

“No…” he leaned against the desk, smiling at her while she worked. “So… You do this as a part time job or something?”

She sighed, wondering how much she could tell him. “Would you believe I actually have a Bachelors in Computer Science?”

“I would…” He smiled again, handing her a driver’s license when she prompted him for one. Huh. Oliver Wilson. (And of course he’d be lucky enough to have a perfect Driver’s License photo. Some people had all the luck.)

“What brings you here to Starling?” he asked suddenly.

She looked up curiously. “Why do you ask that?”

She wasn’t normally this… paranoid but… Some hot guy insinuating that she just moved here? (She did, but not for reasons most people would expect right off the bat.) That’s what Agent Diggle would call suspicious right?

He shrugged, brushing it off. “Just don’t think I’d miss a face as beautiful as yours if you were here in Starling this whole time. How do you find it so far?”

Felicity’s blush grew hotter and she looked down and away from him. Okay, maybe she  _was_ being too paranoid. Why not enjoy this while she could?

“Pretty wonderful, actually”, she said, giving him a once over and smiling harder when she saw him grinning. 

— — — — —

Three weeks and five secret meetings between her and Oliver later, (because the agents following her were  _very_ nosy and she liked her privacy dammit), and Felicity was pretty sure she was on her way to falling, hard. (Or she had already fallen hard and was in serious denial.)

Because the next time Oliver came in, claiming that he wasn’t Facebook-savvy and needed to find some random friend on Facebook (who turned out to practically be a stranger when she listed the man’s old job and Oliver knew nothing and just stopped playing dumb and said he just came in to see her), she could feel like they had something special. It was only intensified by the time he brought her Chinese and saying he knew she missed her lunch break, (which would have been slightly creepy if it wasn’t for the fact that he was absolutely correct and she was  _starving_ ).

She kept an eye on the entrance every time she heard it open because at this point she missed him only a minute after he left, and she still smiled at the fact that he brought her an actual  _latte_ the other day and snorted when she remembered his weak and obviously fake excuse for the bullet-ridden laptop he brought in the day they met. (Which, curiously, she never found out the truth about. Oliver seemed to very good at directing the conversation away from  _him._ )   

Weird conversation habits aside,  _Oliver_ was just perfect. He laughed at her weird jokes and kept smiling at her and last night when he grasped her hands and pulled her closer to him and kissed her it felt like he actually wanted to  _be_ there and for once in this mess that her life had become, she was  _happy._ Nothing could bring her down.

It was because she kept an eye on the entrance almost obsessively that she saw Diggle walking into Buy More. When she saw him she just nodded, indicating that she knew he was here and that she would meet him in the back.

“Hey…” Dig said, pulling her into a hug and effectively hiding her from view. “I’m sorry this is abrupt but we need to go. Our Intel tells us that the Queens are in the area and are looking for you; we need to move.”

Felicity felt her heart drop into her stomach. “But I can’t! I just…”

Diggle stared at her, unconvinced.

“Let me just…” Ideas of creating a private secure line ran through her head and she earnestly stared at Dig and did her best puppy-dog eye expression. “Thirty minutes. Please.”

“Ms. Darnell—“

“Okay,  _five!_ That’s all.”

“Felicity!” he whispered, grasping her arm and pulling her even closer so there wasn’t a chance for them to be overheard. “You know protocol. We need to move, _now_.”

“Let me just say goodbye!” she pleaded again. “Five minutes, okay no. Two!”

Diggle frowned. “Say goodbye to who?”

“Oliver!”

Diggle’s eyebrows turned inward in confusion as he looked through his memory to think of who she could possibly be referring to. “… Your coworker Oliver?” She did have one of those; granted, he worked in stock but… It was possible, right? His men should have been keeping a good eye on her and everyone she interacted with. There was no way that she was referring to…

Felicity shook her head; her shoulders caving in on themselves as if betraying her guilt for hiding Oliver from Diggle. She didn’t  _mean_ to not tell Dig but she just… forgot. “No… He’s a… repeat customer.”

Diggle’s eyes widened and he glanced at the perimeter around them before grabbing his cell phone and calling his team.

“Ms. Darnell, we need to go  _now_ ”, Diggle said, leaving no more room for interruptions as he dragged Felicity by the arm out of the building and into a waiting car. He juggled holding her in a protective grip and balancing the phone between his shoulder and his ear as they both entered the car.

“Hey Lyla? We’ve been made. Get a private jet ready.”

“Wait what?” Felicity asked, obediently following Dig shoving her around, as she knew something was very,  _very_ wrong. “How were we made?”

Diggle ignored her in favor of listening to Lyla’s orders on the other side of the phone, and while Felicity struggled to hear what she was saying, she couldn’t hear much of anything.

“Mhm. Got it. We’re on our way now.”

Diggle put the phone back in his pocket before giving silent directions to the driver in the front, who immediately understood the code and put the car in drive.

“Dig. Dig!  _John!”_ Felicity whispered, pulling at his blazer’s sleeve until he looked at her. “What is going on?”

“Your friend Oliver?” Diggle said, almost  _snarling_ on the word ‘Oliver’. “He’s not just some handsome stranger that I’m sure you found very charming. He also goes by Oliver _Queen_ , as in, the family that has a price for your head.”

Felicity’s jaw dropped lightly as she let go of her grip on Diggle and fell back onto the car seat.

Oliver Wilson— No. Oliver  _Queen._

Wow.  _Wow._ She was an idiot.

She knew the idea of some…  _handsome stranger_ taking an interest in her was too… Too good to be true, but she didn’t actually think that… She didn’t actually think that any of this wasn’t real, she thought sadly, staying silent for the rest of the drive.

— — — — —

It wasn’t until they parked the car and Diggle was having his team check the perimeter (all while grumbling that said team was highly incompetent if Oliver Queen breezed into Buy More like it was nothing all of  _five times_ —which Diggle was  _not_ happy about), that Felicity knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she at least knew the truth.

Was it… Fake? Was it all some elaborate scheme designed for her to trust him and then just… whisk her off so he could kill her?

All so she couldn’t  _testify_?

The tears burned her eyes but she didn’t want to cry, not here, not over something so… not insignficant. Just…

She didn’t know anymore.

She quietly got out of the car when Dig said it was clear, and he held her tight in his grasp as they entered the building.

“Are you really sure we need to take the stairs?” Felicity asked, groaning at the sight of the stairwell and the disappearing sight of the beautiful elevators.

“Just until we get to the third floor; there’s a private elevator for staff that we can use to get to the roof”, Diggle whispered, pulling her along quickly. 

They entered the staircase and quickly ran up the stairs, and Felicity could feel the burn in her thighs and the aching of her feet as she tried to climb the stairs faster.

One more flight of stairs to go, and then the sweet release of the elevator would be there and— 

The world went dark for a second when she felt a force on her right and felt her body slam against the stairwell wall. She groaned at the flare of pain on her left and slowly opened her eyes to see a fuzzy vision of two men fighting. Blinking harder to try and regain her sight, she grabbed the stair railing and pulled herself up, gingerly holding her left side and watching Oliver put Diggle in a chokehold and tightening his grip on him.

“Oliver no!” she screamed, but it was too late as she saw Diggle collapse to the ground.

“What did you do?” she asked, horrified, trying to back down the stairwell. Maybe if she could just get to the lobby and scream for help—

“Felicity please”, Oliver whispered, walking slowly towards her until she could feel her back hit the wall and him coming closer.

“Are you gonna kill me now? Like you killed him?” she asked, feeling the hot burn of tears running down her cheeks as she stared at Diggle. Dig, poor Dig with a baby on the way and she just killed a man because she couldn’t stop flirting with a  _handsome stranger_ and—

“I didn’t kill him! He’s just out cold”, Oliver said quietly, encircling her waist with his arms and she couldn’t help but flinch when he did it.

(It didn’t escape her notice to see Oliver frowning when she did that.)

“Listen to me, please. I’m not going to hurt you Felicity.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked, suddenly realizing that the man whose been calling her ‘Meghan’ for three weeks knew her real name.

He smiled sadly, “Because you know my name.”

Right… Oliver  _Queen_ , heir of an infamous mob family who she was supposed to face in a  _murder trial in four months_ —

That Oliver. Right.

“I’m not who you think I am.”

She snorted. “I’ll say.”

He frowned, but didn’t let go of the grip he had on her waist. “I’ve been trying to get out of the…  _family business_ for years. I’ve never had the… the opportunity to get out before… Not until now.”

That didn’t make any sense. “So what, you keep an eye on me and boom! Mom and Pops let you go?”

Everyone ‘knew’ (that being a general term, because people knew but no one would ever admit to knowing anything) that Moira Queen was the actual head of the Queen Family while her husband Robert was just a puppet, but that was as far as Intel really went.

“… I’ve never met anyone worth risking their wrath before I met you”, he said, leaning in closer to press his forehead against hers and then suddenly it was like the last two hours never happened, as if she hadn’t found out the truth and the heat seeping through their clothes was just a natural way for her to feel when she was this close to him.

But she knew the truth. This could never be the same.

It was as if Oliver could tell exactly what she was thinking, and he nuzzled his cheek against hers, pulling her closer into a hug.

“My mom… She found out that we were dating and…  _suggested_ that I… prove my loyalty.” Felicity could feel his grasp tightened around her hips and suddenly she _knew exactly_ what Moira Queen had ‘suggested’ her son do.

“Then why didn’t you?” she asked, raising her eyes to meet his. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

He looked at her with such… such  _earnest_ and something told Felicity that Oliver wasn’t lying to her.

“I couldn’t”, he said, throat tight. “Not you.” 

“Yeah and you won’t get the chance to either bud.”

Felicity’s eyes widened when she saw Dig pressing the gun to Oliver’s back. “Hands off her, Queen. Now.” 

“Dig—“ she started to say, but Oliver followed the orders perfectly and turned around, raising his hands up to surrender.

“My sister and I want immunity in exchange for The List.”

Felicity knew she was missing something when she saw Diggle become interested. “What makes you think leaving the life of  _luxury_  is what you want, rich boy?”

“We’ve been wanting out for years”, Oliver said, speaking quickly as if he knew he didn’t have much time to speak. “When I refused to be the next head of the family, my mom and Malcolm Merlyn started grooming  _Thea_ to be the heir to both families after Tommy died and…” Oliver looked away and Felicity frowned, knowing from their dates that Oliver treasured his sister more than anything. “She doesn’t want that life, and neither do I.”

Diggle considered him quietly and it felt like ages before he spoke again. “That List is supposed to implicate your family in dozens of murders, at the very least. No idea what else we could find in there. You sure you want that?”

Oliver nodded. “Yes.”

“Then I guess we have some work to do then. You don’t mind if I keep the gun on you, do you?” Diggle smiled unkindly. “Can’t say I trust you just yet.”

Oliver nodded and went ahead of Diggle when the Agent directed him down the stairs, and Felicity couldn’t help but notice the way Oliver’s eyes kept coming back to see her.

She was probably imagining it. After all, now that the truth was out and Oliver got Diggle to agree to think about giving him immunity…  

What else was left for them? (Nothing, her mind added bitterly, and Felicity frowned before slowly walking down the stairs to follow Dig and Oliver.)

— — — — — 

_Epilogue – After the Trial_

Exiting the court room, Felicity followed Dig, Oliver, and Thea to their car, where they’d reconvene at the FBI’s headquarters one last time before heading their separate ways, new identities in place.

Felicity squirmed in her seat and tried to keep her gaze on the ground. She knew it was coming, the inevitable “hey! We survived! Nice knowing you” conversation with Oliver that she had been dreading, so she did the mature thing and avoided him like the plague during the trial.

He probably hated her by now, she thought sadly, and fidgeted even more in her seat.

It wasn’t until the awkward (super awkward) and silent car ride was over and Dig and Thea walked ahead of them did Felicity walk up to Oliver. It was now or never. She had to face the music sometime right?

Just… like a bandage. Rip it off and get it over with. She can do this.

“So… you did it”, she said, not prepared for the intense gaze Oliver met her with.

The trial was over, the Queens were found guilty of several ( _several_ not even beginning to discuss the number of charges against them) crimes, Oliver and Thea Queen were given immunity for testifying against their family, the ‘List’ was submitted as evidence, and everyone lived  _happily_ ever after. Almost. 

“We both did”, Oliver said quietly, staring at her with an emotion that Felicity couldn’t decipher. She smiled sadly, looking away.

“You really sold it…” She swallowed down the air stuck in her throat. “… You know for a second I thought you really cared about me… But I’m glad you and Thea get a fresh start—”

Oliver grasped her elbow and pulled her closer, confusion written on his expression. “What are you talking about?”

This time her smile was bitter. “You know what I’m talking about. But I guess it doesn’t matter—”

“It does. Felicity…” Oliver pulled her in closer and placed his hands on her waist, not letting her leave like she intended to and his hand cupping her jaw forced her to look at him. “I did— I  _do care._ I still do Felicity. It wasn’t a game for me.”

“… You told me all these  _ridiculous_ lies and yet…” she gulped, licking her lips and trying to ignore the hot blush that bloomed on her cheeks when she saw him following her movements. “I still feel like I can trust you. Why is that?” she asked, feeling as stupid as she was sure she sounded.

“Felicity”, he said, smiling now and she wasn’t sure  _why_ he was smiling because she definitely didn’t say anything funny  _so why was he smiling and leaning closer and_ oh… “You can trust me.”

It was her turn to smile when he leaned down to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to check out more from the OPI? (Olicity Prompt Inspirations) Head on to Tumblr and look at the rest of the submissions and while you're there, see if there's a prompt that inspires you to write something! Have fun!!! 
> 
> * Darnell = English surname meaning "Hidden"


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